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Thursday, October 11, 2012

Farm Themed Barrier Game

I have typically done my farm theme in the spring. Reading Jenna's recent post on Speech Room News about "Rosie's Walk," it occurred to me that a farm theme really would tie in nicely at this time of year! Pumpkins and scarecrows are usually found on some sort of a farm, right?

Well, I created this one a while back, but have been waiting til spring to post it. Since some of you may be doing farm themes now, here it is!

Barrier games are great for listening comprehension and expressive language. You can play one on one with one of your students, have 2 students play, or have 2 teams of students play. For a barrier game, you will want two copies each of the background scene and the game pieces (one for each player/team). You may want to laminate the background scene and game pieces for durability. Cut out the game pieces.

To play, put a barrier (open file folder, large book, etc.) between the two players/teams. Have one player/team set up a scene using the game pieces. Then they describe their scene to the other player/team, who tries to recreate the scene exactly. The more specific the descriptions, the more accurate the recreation. Once completed, you can remove the barrier and discuss what is correct or incorrect, discuss where communication breakdowns occurred, and brainstorm what the students could have done to improve the outcome.

I've actually never tried barrier games. This looks SO cute! It sounds really good for giving oral explanations and following directions. Thanks for sharing! Oh, and I started a little speech blog too if you want to check it out :) busybeespeech.blogspot.com

I work as a school based speech-language pathologist in New Bedford, MA. I work primarily with students in preschool and kindergarten. I'm also the mom of a very sweet little boy who takes up much of my free time.